Optical Engineering

Aerosol size distributions measured with altitude in eight different maritime stratus regimes are used to determine the liquid water content, total volume scattering coefficient, and angular phase function for a wavelength of 0.525 um. The scattering coefficient and mean square angle of scattering were found to correlate with the liquid water content, which increased with altitude above the cloud base according to a power law relationship. Regression equa-tions relating the scattering coefficient and mean square angle of scattering to altitude within these clouds are then used to express the time broadening of a pulsed optical beam as a function of cloud thickness.